1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an interconnector for rolling balls, and more particularly, to an interconnector used in a ball screw or a linear guide way for preventing adjacent rolling balls from impinging with each other.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Mutual impinging of rolling balls in a ball screw or a linear guide way causes noises and loss of useful mechanical power resulting in unexpected obstacle to machine operation. For improving such a problem, a plastic interconnector is employed for isolating adjacent rolling balls not to collide with each other. As the interconnector is formed in a belt structure, it is only able to provide a two dimensional planar path instead of a three dimensional path for balls to travel in a ball screw or a linear guide way as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,951,168 and 5,988,883. Unfortunately, most of the circulation systems for ball screws and linear guide ways require for a three dimensional path for movement of their rolling balls as pointed out in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,429,439, 5,562,346 and 5,758,975. For a remedy, the conventional belt type interconnector was tried to be flexed into a desired shape. But owing to its want of flexibility, the interconnector constructed as such is difficult to be formed into a desired figure. As a result, the turning curvature of a ball circulation path will become too steep for balls to travel smoothly which causes the necessity of decreasing amount of load carrying balls and weakening load carrying capability of the apparatus for compensation.
Aiming at the above depicted defects, the present invention is to propose a newly developed interconnector for rolling balls for improving this situation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an interconnector for rolling balls full of resiliency and flexibility whose linking chain is capable of bending in any direction and any figure instead of conventional belt type structure which can only flex in the direction of thickness and connect its head and end portions together to form an nearly annular circulation path.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an interconnector for rolling balls capable of preventing mutual collision of adjacent balls and causing noise.
It is one more object of the present invention to provide an interconnector for rolling balls capable of separating from die cavity after finishing die casting, providing means for positioning rolling balls in operation and impartment of lubrication oil between balls.
To achieve these and other objects described above, each interconnector of the present invention comprises a spacer, a direction guiding member, and a linking chain. The spacer is intervened between two adjacent balls so as to prevent them colliding with each other and eliminate noises as well. The two adjacent spacers are linked with two linking chains formed meandering therebetween, the linking chain is made of an elastic material with sufficient resiliency to elongate and shrink so as to impart the two adjacent spacers an elastic force to retain a ball therebetween such that the rolling ball is assured not to slip away in the case when no extraneous force is applied. In order to prevent the linking chains from shagging disorderly and twisting around the rolling balls or the guide way, two flat direction guiding wings are provided for each spacer to clog in gaps at both sides of the guide way track so as to guide the linking chains traveling in the right direction and not to stray into the track due to collapsion.
In the present invention, the meandering linking chain may be formed into variety of configurations, such as a sinuous form, a serrated form, or a trapezoidal form that is able to serve with an excellent elongation and shrinkage effects.
In the present invention, the two wings of the direction guiding member are formed tapering towards the terminal ends thereof so that the two adjacent direction guiding members do not interfere with each other in case the interconnector is inclined or flexed.
Besides, in order to facilitate separating the interconnector from the die cavity after finishing die casting, a through hole is drilled at the center of the spacer for this purpose, and additionally provides means for positioning rolling balls during operation and imparting lubrication oil between the balls.